Riverside County Sheriff Stanley Sniff is urging Gov. Jerry Brown to veto a bill that would prevent police from handing over detainees arrested for non-violent crimes to federal immigration officials for possible deportation.

As Sniff and the California State Sheriffs’ Association pressure Brown for a veto, immigration activists from the Inland area and elsewhere are planning to rally on the state Capitol steps Tuesday, Aug. 28, in support of the legislation.

Riverside and San Bernardino counties are among more than 3,000 jurisdictions nationwide that share jail detainees’ fingerprints with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. More than 212,000 people have been deported under the program, called Secure Communities, since its inception in 2008.

But critics point to ICE statistics that show that most illegal immigrants in the Inland area and nationwide who have been deported under Secure Communities did not commit major crimes.

Sniff said Riverside County cannot ignore the federal government’s requests for fingerprints.

“This puts the sheriffs in California between a rock and a hard spot,” Sniff said Monday, Aug. 27. “We either have to violate federal law or defy state law.”

The state Senate last week approved the Trust Act and sent it to Brown’s desk. The governor has not yet decided whether to sign the bill, gubernatorial spokesman Gareth Lacy said.

Brown supported Secure Communities as attorney general.

San Bernardino County Sheriff Rod Hoops has not taken a position on the legislation, said sheriff’s department spokeswoman Jodi Miller.

The state’s Roman Catholic bishops are among the leading supporters of the bill.

John Andrews, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino, which includes Riverside and San Bernardino counties, said Secure Communities casts too wide a net, ensnaring people who commit minor crimes.

Daniel Guzman, legal resources coordinator of the Justice for Immigrants Coalition of Inland Southern California, which includes the diocese, said deporting low-level offenders can lead to higher crime, because undocumented immigrants are less likely to interact with police.

“We want to make sure immigrants trust the police,” said Guzman, who said he will participate in Tuesday’s Sacramento Trust Act rally.

Only 21 percent of Inland illegal immigrants deported under Secure Communities since Riverside and San Bernardino counties joined the program in 2010 had been convicted of the most serious felonies, such as murder, rape, child sexual abuse and some categories of theft and burglary, ICE statistics show. Another 15 percent were convicted of less serious felonies, or three or more misdemeanors.

The rest were found guilty of fewer than three misdemeanors or had no record of a criminal conviction ICE could locate.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks, who represents parts of San Bernardino County, said the bill would make California “a sanctuary state for illegal alien criminals.”

Donnelly said some misdemeanors, such as driving under the influence, are not minor offenses.

“This is not about people coming here for a better life or any of that horse crap,” Donnelly said. “This is about whether more Americans will be killed by people who should not be in our communities.”

Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz said even though he wishes that Secure Communities be used in a more “surgical” manner and not lead to the deportation of people who commit the most minor crimes, he sees the Trust Act as overly constraining local law enforcement.

Chris Newman, legal director of the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which works with day laborers in the Inland area and elsewhere, said by allowing the sharing of fingerprints of those held on “a serious or violent felony,” the bill targets dangerous criminals, not minor offenders.

“The Trust Act will make sure that people who are threats to public safety will remain behind bars,” Newman said.

But Sniff said people who commit the most minor offenses are typically not jailed and aren’t fingerprinted. He said Secure Communities does not undermine trust between illegal-immigrant victims and witnesses and police because it only affects detainees.

Sniff said he wants to wait to see if the bill is signed into law before deciding whether to defy state law — as Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said he may do — but he said that, in general, federal law trumps state law.

“To say we don’t have to comply with federal law is absurd,” he said.

Follow David Olson on Twitter: @DavidOlson11

Trust act

Secure Communities: The federal program requires local law-enforcement agencies to allow the fingerprints of all jail detainees to be shared with immigration authorities. That includes those who are arrested but not convicted, and those jailed on minor offenses.

The Trust Act: The bill, which has passed the state Assembly and Senate, would only allow the sharing of fingerprints of those charged or convicted of “serious or violent felony.”